The present invention relates in general to telecommunication services and, more particularly, to an apparatus, method and system for personal telecommunication call screening and alerting for call waiting applications.
With the advent of sophisticated telecommunication services, telecommunication consumers frequently experience the reception of unwanted or otherwise undesirable telephone calls. For example, telemarketers frequently use computerized calling procedures, which often interrupt consumers at unwanted times, such as at meal times. In other circumstances, with call waiting, consumers may also be interrupted by such an unwanted call while engaged with another, more important or desirable call. Such interruptions are often perceived by consumers as inconvenient, irritating and annoying.
In the prior art, for call waiting applications, telephone customers are able to screen such incoming calls, using a specialized caller identification (xe2x80x9ccaller IDxe2x80x9d) or caller name systems (such as call waiting with caller name systems). Under such circumstances, the consumer is interrupted from their current activity, and must personally examine the incoming caller identification information to determine whether they want to answer the incoming call.
In a more general call waiting environment without caller ID or caller name, when engaged with or on a current call, the consumer is not able to screen (or pre-screen) the incoming call, but must actually answer the incoming call to determine its caller or source. Not only is the consumer interrupted from their current call, but also the consumer must personally answer the incoming call to determine whether they wish to continue with the current call, continue with the incoming call, or continue with both the current and the incoming call.
As a consequence, a need remains for an apparatus, method and system that may be used by a telecommunication consumer to automatically screen their incoming calls for or during call waiting situations. Such call screening should occur without personal interruption and without any required user intervention (such as without requiring caller ID examination or answering the incoming call). In addition, such an apparatus, method and system should be user friendly, should be personalized and automatically tailored to the needs, tastes and preferences of individual customers. In addition, the apparatus, method and system should be cost effective and capable of implementation in existing telecommunication systems.
The present invention provides an apparatus, method and system to screen incoming calls for call waiting applications, without consumer interruption and without personal involvement in the screening process. The present invention provides such automatic screening in accordance with the personal and tailored needs, tastes and preferences of the individual telecommunication consumer. In addition, the apparatus embodiment may be implemented in customer premise equipment, such as telephones, while the system embodiment may be implemented in existing telecommunication systems, such as network switches. The various embodiments may also be expanded to include more than voice communications, such as data communications and video conferencing.
The personal call screening and alerting of the present invention incorporates an xe2x80x9corganic personaxe2x80x9d concept, such that not only are the services personalized or customized to the needs or preferences of individual consumers, but also the apparatus or system automatically learns these preferences by observing the actions or activities of the individual consumer.
In accordance with the present invention, such personal and individualized automatic call screening and alerting, for call waiting situations, is based upon a statistical or other probabilistic likelihood that the individual consumer does or does not, in fact, want to receive or be interrupted by an incoming call from a particular source at a particular time. Such a likelihood is derived from two sources, first, a measure of an affinity between the calling and called parties, and second, priorities determined by the consumer""s past behavior in allowing or not allowing interruptions from an incoming call from the particular source.
The measure of affinity between the calling and called parties is based upon the concept that the called party is more likely to want to receive a call from someone with whom they have a greater or more significant affinity or association, such as their parent or child, and less likely to want to receive a call from someone with whom they have a lesser or no affinity or association, such as a telemarketer or a prankster. As a consequence, calls having a greater affinity measurement may be given a correspondingly higher priority in the screening process, and calls having a lesser affinity may be given a correspondingly lower priority in the screening process. The directory numbers (telephone numbers) corresponding to the calls having such an affinity, in the preferred embodiment, are stored in an affinity database, and are referred to herein as xe2x80x9caffinity numbersxe2x80x9d.
For call waiting purposes, in accordance with the present invention, relative or comparative priorities are then determined between and among the various telephone numbers comprising the affinity database. These priorities are based upon the consumer""s past behavior concerning incoming calls, and the relative priorities then provide a means for conflict resolution between potentially competing calls from or to the user""s affinity numbers. Utilizing these priorities, an incoming call from a higher priority telephone number is provided with a distinctive, high priority tone and is allowed to interrupt a current call from or to a telephone number having the same or a lower priority. Conversely, however, an incoming call from a lower priority telephone number is provided with a lower priority tone, and may or may not be allowed to interrupt a current call from or to a telephone numbers having a higher priority; instead, in the preferred embodiment, the consumer may decide to not answer the lower priority call, and such a lower priority incoming call may be automatically routed to a voice mail or other answering system.
In accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention, such priorities are determined from two sources. First, these priorities may be user determined, as specified or input directly by the consumer. Second, these priorities may be based upon observation of the activities of the consumer, such as whether the consumer allows certain current calls to be interrupted by incoming calls at all; whether the consumer answers and continues with an incoming call while releasing the current call; or whether the consumer answers the incoming call, but releases the incoming call and continues with the current call.
A method for personal telecommunication call screening and alerting during a first telecommunication call, in accordance with the present invention, includes receiving a second telecommunication call during the first telecommunication call, and second, determining a relative priority of the second telecommunication call in comparison to the first telecommunication call. When the second telecommunication call has a same relative priority or a higher relative priority than the first telecommunication call, the method provides a first level of priority service to the second telecommunication call, such as interrupting the first telecommunication call with a distinctive, first priority level user alert, such as a distinctive call waiting tone. When the second telecommunication call has a lower relative priority than the first telecommunication call, the method then provides a second level of priority service to the second telecommunication call, such as interrupting the first telecommunication call with a distinctive, second priority level user alert or tone, or such as not interrupting the first telecommunication call and instead providing automatic messaging or voice mail services for the second telecommunication call.
In the various embodiments, an affinity database is maintained which has a plurality of telephone numbers referred to as affinity numbers. The telephone numbers in the affinity database (xe2x80x9caffinity numbersxe2x80x9d) are determined by including telephone numbers corresponding to the user""s outgoing telecommunication calls, and by including telephone numbers corresponding to the user""s received incoming calls having a predetermined minimum duration.
Also in the various embodiments, relative or comparative priorities are associated with each affinity number of the affinity database, and are determined either through direct user input, or through observation of the previous activities of the user. Direct user input consists of prior user assignment of at least one relative priority, of the plurality of relative priorities. Observation of prior user behavior involves the determination of at least one relative priority based upon a pair-wise comparison of prior user treatment of an incoming telecommunication call during a current telecommunication call, such as (1) assigning a lower relative priority to the incoming telecommunication call when the incoming telecommunication call has been ignored (not answered) during the current telecommunication call; (2) assigning a higher relative priority to the incoming telecommunication call when the incoming telecommunication call has been answered and selected for continued communication while the current telecommunication call has been terminated; (3) assigning a lower relative priority to the incoming telecommunication call when the current telecommunication call has been selected for continued communication while the incoming telecommunication call was answered but has been terminated; and (4) assigning a same relative priority to the incoming telecommunication call when the incoming telecommunication call has been answered and has been selected for continued communication concurrently with the current telecommunication call.